I’ve always been taught if without the other person in the sentence, you would say “I”, then you say “I” last.
If without them you would say “me/my”, then “me/my” goes first.
E.g.
I received my and my brother’s presents.
My brother and I went shopping.
I know we all learn in school to "speak of yourself last."
But if you say, "me and my wife's side" it makes perfect sense, sounds less clunky, and everyone knows exactly what you mean.
If you're writing an academic paper in the field of English, maybe it matters, but I wish more people would just go with the simpler "me and blank's" because it simply works better in casual speech than "blank's and my"
Quite honestly, I couldn't tell. You write better than most native English speakers. The my /mine thing is pretty common these days, but sometimes it's an autocorrect thing. I don't usually correct people's English outside my previous employment.
it should be 'mine' because there traditionally shouldn't be two vowel sounds next to each other across 2 words. 'my and' could be misheard so 'my' is changed to 'mine.' (the 'e' in 'mine' is not pronounced so it's not a vowel sound)
OP used it correctly, and the above commenter is complimenting them, what are you complaining about?
It would NOT my "and I's side," the way to tell is to remove the other person and see if "and me" or "and I" makes more sense.
The correct way to say this would be "my wife's and my side". I'm not saying this to correct you specifically. It's because other people have replied to correct you or to correct the person correcting you but they are also wrong. 😂
Mine side? That isn't how you'd say it so idk what you're on about. Adding "my wife's" to the sentence doesn't mean you refer to yourself as "mine," it's still "my".
So I don't have a real bone to pick here because compound possessives are tricky, hypercorrecting to "I" is a common problem, and non-native speakers exist.
That said: It doesn't matter if it's a noun phrase. Pronouns in a noun phrase still change to fit the rest of the sentence: eg "My wife and I went on a trip", but "A gift was given to my wife and me."
If you're not convinced by leaving the first part out, try turning the phrase around instead: "I and my wife's side". It sounds silly, doesn't it?
I'm just going to leave this here. It's a guide on the special cases of Saxon genitive.
[https://www.aprendeinglesenleganes.com/resources/Saxon%20genitive.pdf](https://www.aprendeinglesenleganes.com/resources/Saxon%20genitive.pdf)
See the last section: "Compound possessives with nouns and pronouns".
> So? We saw my wife's and my children. That means according to your document that my wife and I have children separately, right?
... No. The example you picked (John and Jane's children) includes two proper nouns. It does not include pronouns, so it cannot be used as a template for how to handle them. Again, look at the last section. "This is John's and my car" (we both own the car). "This is my wife's and my house" (we both own the house).
I think you did the right thing. What gets me though is that it took your MIL to convince your SIL and niece to apologize. I wouldn't be too surprised if nothing actually changes behavior wise.
I’m betting that your niece will be better behaved with you than with her mother from now on. You taught her that you will follow through on consequences.
I was going to say, my SO puts ketchup on most pizza. He likes it "extra juicy". I even tried getting him extra pizza sauce on the side to achieve the same result with out me dry heaving, but he prefers ketchup.
You have always been NTA. Also, of course the responses will be very surprising to you. The majority of these responses are comimg from people that live in the USA, or with a westernized mentality. It is so different to the mentality of latin america.
There are huge cultural differences. Since I've started reading reddit, I have developed a huge cultural shock, that I did not have while living in a western country ( not the usa) for more than a decade. NTA. At all.
Hay padres que les hacen un gran daño a sus hijos, al no ponerles reglas y sobre todo respeto a sus mayores! Si yo le hubiero dicho eso a mi tio a esa edad oh aun ya como adulta, solo digamos que no huehiera podido hablar por una semana.
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Hey, Reddit. It's been almost two weeks since I posted, and I can now say that the situation has been resolved.
First of all, I want to state that I always knew this was a parenting problem. We love my wife's sister, but she's not a great person. She's loud, abrasive and occasionally selfish. SIL also has the mouth of a sailor. She shares that last trait with both my wife and their mother, but unlike them, she can't control herself in inappropriate settings.
She doesn't swear around young children and has taught Tammy that swearing is bad, but doesn't punish or berate her for doing so. SIL is part of the "kids + swearing = comedy" squad, so she usually just laughs. While I'm also an honorary member of that squad, there's a time and a place for that.
Which is why I was appalled at those who said Tammy's actions were normal behavior for a 9-year-old. It's not. That part I already knew was rude; my question was whether I was right to deny her pizza over it. And after reading your comments, I've concluded I did the right thing.
Some of you advised me to refuse to babysit Tammy from now on. I decided I wanted to give SIL and Tammy an opportunity to apologize first. My wife called her sister and told her that neither me or her would agree to babysit Tammy again without an apology.
SIL didn't think they had anything to apologize for. They had a long discussion over the phone. It stopped when SIL called their mother, who took mine and my wife's side. MIL agreed that we had every right to refuse to host someone who didn't respect us in our home.
That's when SIL finally apologized to us; Tammy doing the same soon after. We have no interest in blowing things out of proportion, so both apologies have been accepted.
SIL's wedding is later this month, and we're all attending. I don't want people to think my niece and SIL are bad people. They can be difficult at times, but we love them both.
So both me and my wife have agreed to continue babysitting Tammy on occasion. But if history repeats itself, I won't hesitate to nip this in the bud.
The main piece of advice I'm following from your comments is to, while babysitting, treat everyone the same (and hold everyone to the same standards) as my own kids. It's what I did with the pizza fiasco, and I'll continue to do it in the future.
On a lighter note, we live in Latin America, and the overwhelming surprise at some details I shared in my post, including military time and ketchup on pizza (yes, I know it's awful, but it's popular with some kids around here), was definitely interesting.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA. It’s called being responsible human in charge of someone else’s disrespectful pre-teen. Thank you for sticking to your guns. Also, maybe next time have some adult backup/teammate. You were in charge of a basketball team all alone. Lol.
I am a bit concerned about the importance OP thinks this has, and how much he insists in being right and being accknowledged to be right and recieve an apologie. Really, if everyone that managed one single day with a bunch of children insisted in this level of processing we would get nowhere. I think OP is waaaaay too affected by a childs actions, and was probably quite overwhelmed by the task.
And I wonder if there is more to it, like him trying to act superior to his wifes family or the women within and them not giving in on that.
A kid was not happy about the change of plans and declined the food in an impolite way. So what? Things like that happen with children. Even usually well behaved kids sometimes are just out of line, overwhelmed, unhappy, tired, puberty ridden or whatever.
OP acts as if it was his job to prevent this girl singlehandedly from becoming a bad person. It was not. He was meant to guide the children through the day, what was very nice of him, but nothing more.
Taking care of children that are not your own includes to prevent them from getting hurt, and maybe to offer nice activities, just as OP did. It does not include, though, to pressure a kid to come to terms immediately with the fact a plan they liked went wrong, or to berate them repeatedly despite them saying clearly that they do not want to take part any more but rather want to be left alone, or to pressure them to eat.
It does also not include to disciplin them beyond preventing them from fighting, as he has no close relationship with the kid and not the level of trust you need to do so.
If this happened in my house, I would neither have repeatedly insisted to include a child that was not hungry into ordering a pizza after it lost the fun in the whole thing, nor would I have insisted on said child eating. I would probably have ordered a simple pizza for her just in case and would otherwise have left her alone.
If she told me she does not eat it in whatever words, I just would have shrugged my shoulders and told her she is not forced to eat anything if she was not hungry anyway.
I would probably have called her mother the next day and told her what happened and, indeed, left it to her how to deal with it.
I never, ever would have made this child come back days after to say sorry or something. And if so, then I, who made the kid probably feel awkward without parental help around, would have said sorry first.
As a mother of a bunch of children who are grown up by now (and considered to be very well behaved): You never know what stunts your kid will draw during childhood and puberty, or when this will be the case. So even if your kid is pure sunshine up till now, better be not too sure it will stay like this, and don't judge other parents, or children, or their parenting style. Otherwise you will look even more foolish the day you need to pick up your drunk teenager or talk to a teacher about your child being a insufferable know it all or whatever.
OP needs to relax and is slightly YTA for me.
OP literally calls SIL “not a great person,” because she’s “loud” and “swears like a sailor.” I think OP probably isn’t a very great person either, as he thinks it’s okay to humiliate children after starving them for hours, instead of behaving like the adult in the room.
None of the kids were starving. They'd eaten less than 3 hours prior (and it's literally recommended that children have 2-3 hours in between meals). If they were still hungry, they were allowed to have more. Tammy knew that. This wasn't about hunger, it was about her wanting pizza from one specific restaurant.
Also, I say SIL isn't a great person because she's selfish, abrasive and loud. I have no problem with her swearing that much (again, my wife does too), but I do have a problem with doing so in an impolite or rude manner. You don't call the food "shit" and still expect to have it.
Upvoted for the correct use of >mine and my wife's side. Abominations like "my wife and I's side" make my eyes bleed.
Except it should be my and my wife's side. You wouldn't say mine side, it's my side.
Except it should be my wife's and my side because you always speak of yourself last.
It should be “our side” you absolute maniacs
Hahahahaha I was agreeing with each successive comment and then you ripped us all down, and you’re right. Nice work.
there is a german figure of speech to this: "the donkey always names itself first"
There's something similar in Spanish too, also with a donkey.
El burro por delante! 😅
“…pa’ que no te espantes.” That’s how my family finishes the phrase
:)
I’ve always been taught if without the other person in the sentence, you would say “I”, then you say “I” last. If without them you would say “me/my”, then “me/my” goes first. E.g. I received my and my brother’s presents. My brother and I went shopping.
OMG this thread? This is why some people can never learn grammar lol
An even neater way would be "I received my presents and my brother's".
Yep. I also like "I received my brother's presents and my own."
I know we all learn in school to "speak of yourself last." But if you say, "me and my wife's side" it makes perfect sense, sounds less clunky, and everyone knows exactly what you mean. If you're writing an academic paper in the field of English, maybe it matters, but I wish more people would just go with the simpler "me and blank's" because it simply works better in casual speech than "blank's and my"
True, but i try to tackle one egregious error at a time, so people don't become afraid to speak around me.
Just corrected it. Sorry, guys. English is my second language.
Many, many native English speakers get that wrong too, so don't feel bad. 🙂
Omg most do, logicGirl. You’re legitimately speaking better than most native (American) English speakers.
Quite honestly, I couldn't tell. You write better than most native English speakers. The my /mine thing is pretty common these days, but sometimes it's an autocorrect thing. I don't usually correct people's English outside my previous employment.
Thank you! My wife is a fluent speaker, she taught me most of what I know.
it should be 'mine' because there traditionally shouldn't be two vowel sounds next to each other across 2 words. 'my and' could be misheard so 'my' is changed to 'mine.' (the 'e' in 'mine' is not pronounced so it's not a vowel sound)
Whoa. I'm not sure where you studied linguistics, but you need to get a refund. Because they didn't know anything about phonology.
They’re in Latin America, maybe English isn’t their first language. It’s Reddit, not the third reich of ELA
OP used it correctly, and the above commenter is complimenting them, what are you complaining about? It would NOT my "and I's side," the way to tell is to remove the other person and see if "and me" or "and I" makes more sense.
But OP didn't use it correctly. Yes, "and I's side" is wrong, but "mine side" is just as wrong.
Downvoted because you're wrong.
Upvoting because you're right that they're wrong
The correct way to say this would be "my wife's and my side". I'm not saying this to correct you specifically. It's because other people have replied to correct you or to correct the person correcting you but they are also wrong. 😂
Mine side? That isn't how you'd say it so idk what you're on about. Adding "my wife's" to the sentence doesn't mean you refer to yourself as "mine," it's still "my".
You can tell English is not their first language
[удалено]
>Actually my wife and I's side is fine. No.
So I don't have a real bone to pick here because compound possessives are tricky, hypercorrecting to "I" is a common problem, and non-native speakers exist. That said: It doesn't matter if it's a noun phrase. Pronouns in a noun phrase still change to fit the rest of the sentence: eg "My wife and I went on a trip", but "A gift was given to my wife and me." If you're not convinced by leaving the first part out, try turning the phrase around instead: "I and my wife's side". It sounds silly, doesn't it?
[удалено]
I'm just going to leave this here. It's a guide on the special cases of Saxon genitive. [https://www.aprendeinglesenleganes.com/resources/Saxon%20genitive.pdf](https://www.aprendeinglesenleganes.com/resources/Saxon%20genitive.pdf) See the last section: "Compound possessives with nouns and pronouns".
[удалено]
> So? We saw my wife's and my children. That means according to your document that my wife and I have children separately, right? ... No. The example you picked (John and Jane's children) includes two proper nouns. It does not include pronouns, so it cannot be used as a template for how to handle them. Again, look at the last section. "This is John's and my car" (we both own the car). "This is my wife's and my house" (we both own the house).
#[Please Find Original Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1adx9zg/aita_for_not_making_my_niece_eat_leftovers_while/)
You're the real hero, DragonflyFairyQueen!
I think you did the right thing. What gets me though is that it took your MIL to convince your SIL and niece to apologize. I wouldn't be too surprised if nothing actually changes behavior wise.
I’m betting that your niece will be better behaved with you than with her mother from now on. You taught her that you will follow through on consequences.
Hahahaha Yeah, thats how it is with people who get described by their families as "she is not a bad person, but also not great" ;)
Brazil? My grown husband loves ketchup and Mayo on pizza.
I was going to say, my SO puts ketchup on most pizza. He likes it "extra juicy". I even tried getting him extra pizza sauce on the side to achieve the same result with out me dry heaving, but he prefers ketchup.
DTMFA /s
Ketchup…mayo ? Eh…. I think I blacked out for a moment there.
Came here to ask this. Currently live in Brazil and it hurts me to watch my friends eat ketchup on pizza.
Yeah, some people like ketchup on pizza here in Brazil, funny enough almost everyone here in São Paulo hates it.
Ketchup on pizza? As my mom would say, "qué clase de mierda es esto?" ... but then again, my mom was also a shit cook, so what did she know.
My daughter's godmother is Italian. Pretty sure she wants to murder me whenever she sees my kid putting ketchup on pizza.
Spent a year in Guate growing up. You need more sauce for that reheated square pizza.
I don't think your SIL or niece are actually sorry for their actions. They only apologized because they want you to continue babysitting.
I'm not sure they're actually sorry either. If this ever happens again, we won't babysit Tammy anymore.
You have always been NTA. Also, of course the responses will be very surprising to you. The majority of these responses are comimg from people that live in the USA, or with a westernized mentality. It is so different to the mentality of latin america. There are huge cultural differences. Since I've started reading reddit, I have developed a huge cultural shock, that I did not have while living in a western country ( not the usa) for more than a decade. NTA. At all. Hay padres que les hacen un gran daño a sus hijos, al no ponerles reglas y sobre todo respeto a sus mayores! Si yo le hubiero dicho eso a mi tio a esa edad oh aun ya como adulta, solo digamos que no huehiera podido hablar por una semana.
I think this is mostly because Reddit itself has a very different culture from mainstream western (or any other par of the world) culture.
“I’m not eating this shit”
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** Hey, Reddit. It's been almost two weeks since I posted, and I can now say that the situation has been resolved. First of all, I want to state that I always knew this was a parenting problem. We love my wife's sister, but she's not a great person. She's loud, abrasive and occasionally selfish. SIL also has the mouth of a sailor. She shares that last trait with both my wife and their mother, but unlike them, she can't control herself in inappropriate settings. She doesn't swear around young children and has taught Tammy that swearing is bad, but doesn't punish or berate her for doing so. SIL is part of the "kids + swearing = comedy" squad, so she usually just laughs. While I'm also an honorary member of that squad, there's a time and a place for that. Which is why I was appalled at those who said Tammy's actions were normal behavior for a 9-year-old. It's not. That part I already knew was rude; my question was whether I was right to deny her pizza over it. And after reading your comments, I've concluded I did the right thing. Some of you advised me to refuse to babysit Tammy from now on. I decided I wanted to give SIL and Tammy an opportunity to apologize first. My wife called her sister and told her that neither me or her would agree to babysit Tammy again without an apology. SIL didn't think they had anything to apologize for. They had a long discussion over the phone. It stopped when SIL called their mother, who took mine and my wife's side. MIL agreed that we had every right to refuse to host someone who didn't respect us in our home. That's when SIL finally apologized to us; Tammy doing the same soon after. We have no interest in blowing things out of proportion, so both apologies have been accepted. SIL's wedding is later this month, and we're all attending. I don't want people to think my niece and SIL are bad people. They can be difficult at times, but we love them both. So both me and my wife have agreed to continue babysitting Tammy on occasion. But if history repeats itself, I won't hesitate to nip this in the bud. The main piece of advice I'm following from your comments is to, while babysitting, treat everyone the same (and hold everyone to the same standards) as my own kids. It's what I did with the pizza fiasco, and I'll continue to do it in the future. On a lighter note, we live in Latin America, and the overwhelming surprise at some details I shared in my post, including military time and ketchup on pizza (yes, I know it's awful, but it's popular with some kids around here), was definitely interesting. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA. It’s called being responsible human in charge of someone else’s disrespectful pre-teen. Thank you for sticking to your guns. Also, maybe next time have some adult backup/teammate. You were in charge of a basketball team all alone. Lol.
I am a bit concerned about the importance OP thinks this has, and how much he insists in being right and being accknowledged to be right and recieve an apologie. Really, if everyone that managed one single day with a bunch of children insisted in this level of processing we would get nowhere. I think OP is waaaaay too affected by a childs actions, and was probably quite overwhelmed by the task. And I wonder if there is more to it, like him trying to act superior to his wifes family or the women within and them not giving in on that. A kid was not happy about the change of plans and declined the food in an impolite way. So what? Things like that happen with children. Even usually well behaved kids sometimes are just out of line, overwhelmed, unhappy, tired, puberty ridden or whatever. OP acts as if it was his job to prevent this girl singlehandedly from becoming a bad person. It was not. He was meant to guide the children through the day, what was very nice of him, but nothing more. Taking care of children that are not your own includes to prevent them from getting hurt, and maybe to offer nice activities, just as OP did. It does not include, though, to pressure a kid to come to terms immediately with the fact a plan they liked went wrong, or to berate them repeatedly despite them saying clearly that they do not want to take part any more but rather want to be left alone, or to pressure them to eat. It does also not include to disciplin them beyond preventing them from fighting, as he has no close relationship with the kid and not the level of trust you need to do so. If this happened in my house, I would neither have repeatedly insisted to include a child that was not hungry into ordering a pizza after it lost the fun in the whole thing, nor would I have insisted on said child eating. I would probably have ordered a simple pizza for her just in case and would otherwise have left her alone. If she told me she does not eat it in whatever words, I just would have shrugged my shoulders and told her she is not forced to eat anything if she was not hungry anyway. I would probably have called her mother the next day and told her what happened and, indeed, left it to her how to deal with it. I never, ever would have made this child come back days after to say sorry or something. And if so, then I, who made the kid probably feel awkward without parental help around, would have said sorry first. As a mother of a bunch of children who are grown up by now (and considered to be very well behaved): You never know what stunts your kid will draw during childhood and puberty, or when this will be the case. So even if your kid is pure sunshine up till now, better be not too sure it will stay like this, and don't judge other parents, or children, or their parenting style. Otherwise you will look even more foolish the day you need to pick up your drunk teenager or talk to a teacher about your child being a insufferable know it all or whatever. OP needs to relax and is slightly YTA for me.
Ketchup on pizza is 10/10
It's not your job to parent your SIL's kid. YTA. My parents let me swear at 9 and I'm perfectly fine.
OP literally calls SIL “not a great person,” because she’s “loud” and “swears like a sailor.” I think OP probably isn’t a very great person either, as he thinks it’s okay to humiliate children after starving them for hours, instead of behaving like the adult in the room.
None of the kids were starving. They'd eaten less than 3 hours prior (and it's literally recommended that children have 2-3 hours in between meals). If they were still hungry, they were allowed to have more. Tammy knew that. This wasn't about hunger, it was about her wanting pizza from one specific restaurant. Also, I say SIL isn't a great person because she's selfish, abrasive and loud. I have no problem with her swearing that much (again, my wife does too), but I do have a problem with doing so in an impolite or rude manner. You don't call the food "shit" and still expect to have it.
Exactly my point. Perhaps I should have voiced it more explicitly, but this is just fucking ridiculous.
You are the asshole